Regulatory Roundup: Unregistered Investment Advice

I’ve spent a lot of time in India early in my career and always found it a fascinating place with an incredibly dynamic financial ecosystem. Recently I went to Mumbai to speak at a market integrity conference, and then met with SEBI, the domestic exchanges and compliance teams from the major banks and brokers. I always ask for interesting cases, and—by a wide margin—most are related to finfluencers. It’s a growing problem globally, not just in India, but it’s instructive to see how quickly the problem has crept up and the steps SEBI has taken in recent years.

Finfluencers don’t just suddenly emerge. It’s India’s rapid expansion in retail trading that’s driven the rise of financial influencers offering trading ideas, courses and market guidance through digital channels. Data from the depositories shows the number of investor accounts (demats) has soared from roughly 40 million in 2020 to over 200 million in 2025. This growth has been driven by easier onboarding, lower trading costs and widespread access to market content through mobile platforms. 
 

This case follows the classic seminar template of “chats on guaranteed returns; visiting speakers talking about guaranteed returns; inducing people to prefer trading instead of taking up job/business; suggestions to exit mutual fund investments or use others money in case of short of capital; suggestion of taking loan for enrolling for the course and for trading … guiding course participants to place orders in live session during MPAT course.”

The course participants mostly received just directions on what to trade. This included identification of specific stocks, entry prices and timing, stop-loss thresholds and post-trade updates and exit guidance. One example I picked out: “TECHM 25-Nov-2021 CE 1560 Buy Entry for TECHM is Triggered. Kindly Place StopLoss of 23.65 in Trigger Price and 22.45 Price Column for 1 Lot.” It’s the combination of payment, repeated messaging and actionable instructions that led SEBI to characterize the activity as falling within the scope of investment advisory or research analyst services.

The She-Wolf of the Stock Market was a part of a broader crackdown on unregistered investment advisory that saw many other YouTubers banned in the past two years. Note that the order is interim and subject to further investigation and final adjudication.

March 2026 Capital Markets Regulatory Updates

24 March 2026: The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) published revised guidance on gatekeeper obligations and manipulative and deceptive trading, clarifying that practices such as spoofing, layering and quote stuffing are prohibited whether conducted manually or electronically.

23 March 2026: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) implemented joint guidance clarifying how federal securities and commodities laws apply to different categories of crypto assets, setting out a formal taxonomy and delineating regulatory jurisdiction across U.S. digital asset markets.

22 March 2026: The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published a consultation seeking feedback on proposed good practices to improve oversight of commodity derivatives markets, with a focus on enhancing surveillance of OTC positions, data aggregation and cross‑regulator information sharing to address market stress and disorderly conditions.

22 March 2026: CIRO issued guidance on when market participants must apply “insider” (IA) and “significant shareholder” (SS) order markers under the Universal Market Integrity Rules (UMIR), including clarification on alternative approaches for determining insider status.

19 March 2026: The U.S. CFTC signed a first‑of‑its‑kind memorandum of understanding with Major League Baseball to establish an information‑sharing and cooperation framework focused on safeguarding the integrity of prediction markets linked to professional baseball.

18 March 2026: The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) published its position on the Basel Committee’s review of banks’ cryptoasset exposure standards, warning that current rules may hinder tokenization by failing to reflect technology neutrality.

17 March 2026: IOSCO published an updated statement on Non‑GAAP financial measures to improve disclosure quality and reduce the risk of misleading presentation for investors.

16 March 2026: The U.K. National Crime Agency, the U.S. Secret Service and Canadian law enforcement authorities announced Operation ATLANTIC, a joint international initiative aimed at identifying and contacting individuals potentially affected by cryptoasset fraud, as part of broader efforts to disrupt cross‑border financial crime.

16 March 2026: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published its Quarterly Review examining recent market recalibration and financial market adjustments amid shifting global conditions.

12 March 2026: The U.S. CFTC published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking and a staff advisory on event contracts to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework for prediction markets, focusing on manipulation risks, market surveillance and abusive trading practices.

11 March 2026: The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) signaled it will regulate crypto assets based on economic substance rather than technology, aligning tokenized securities and stablecoins with existing financial services laws and supporting the passage of the Digital Assets Framework Bill 2025.

9 March 2026: The U.K.’s Home Office published its Fraud Strategy 2026–2029, outlining measures to combat fraud against individuals and businesses while highlighting growing risks posed by crypto and digital assets to U.K. consumers.

1 March 2026: The U.S. SEC updated its Enforcement Manual, standardizing Wells notice timelines and restoring the ability to seek simultaneous settlement and waiver consideration.

1 March 2026: ESMA warned that crypto‑asset perpetual futures marketed in the EU are likely to be regulated as CFDs, bringing them under existing retail investor protection rules.

1 March 2026: ESMA issued a supervisory briefing on algorithmic trading, highlighting deficiencies in pre‑trade controls, governance and testing practices across EU firms.

1 March 2026: ASIC extended short‑selling relief for market makers in precious‑metal‑backed structured products to support liquidity in exchange‑traded options markets.
 

Latest Fines and Enforcement Actions

• CIRO fined a bank $1 million CAD for failing to adequately supervise a registered representative, citing missed red flags around high‑volume trading, suitability and deficient client notes.
• CIRO sanctioned a financial services firm after it admitted to breaching order‑handling rules by delaying the display of small client orders, resulting in fines, disgorgement and costs totaling over $1.5 million CAD.
• Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined three firms ($450,000 USD; $125,000 USD; $80 million USD respectively) for AML surveillance failures.
• FINRA fined a broker-dealer $1.3 million USD for best‑execution failures tied to payment‑for‑order‑flow arrangements and deficient supervisory reviews.
• FINRA fined and censured a broker-dealer $300,000 USD for extensive trade reporting failures, including untimely and inaccurate reporting of millions of transactions to FINRA trade reporting facilities.
• The U.S. SEC announced a settlement with the New York Stock Exchange for $9 million USD for systems failures that disrupted opening auctions in January 2023.
• The U.S. SEC settled insider trading charges against a former senior executive of a medical news platform for trading company shares while in possession of material non‑public information related to lower‑than‑expected sales performance.
• The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned a former CEO of a CFD trading firm from the financial services industry, citing repeated compliance failures, AML weaknesses and misleading regulators.
• The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined a global capital markets firm £338,000 for failing to maintain effective surveillance systems to detect and report suspicious trading in its contracts‑for‑difference business.
• ESMA fined a trade repository €1.37 million for organizational, operational risk and confidentiality breaches under EMIR and SFTR. While ESMA has sanctioned EMIR breaches in the past, this is the first enforcement case involving SFTR breaches and the highest fine imposed by ESMA on a trade repository so far.
• The European Central Bank imposed a €2.26 million penalty on a Finnish bank for persistent breaches of EU large‑exposure reporting rules.
• Dubai’s Financial Services Authority (DFSA) fined a multi-asset investment and management platform $504,000 USD for ineffective market abuse controls and failure to notify the regulator of a change in control.
• Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) obtained worldwide court orders to freeze assets linked to alleged insider dealing by a former HKEX employee and related parties.
• Hong Kong’s SFC banned and fined a former responsible officer of a brokerage house, imposing a 4.5‑year industry ban and a HK$1 million fine for executing matched trades in index options and concealing beneficial interests, citing market integrity concerns.
• Hong Kong’s SFC and Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) arrested eight individuals in a joint operation targeting alleged insider trading and corruption linked to share placements, with suspected illicit gains of about HK$315 million (approx. $40.2 million USD).
• Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) raided a broker’s offices and froze IDR 14.5 trillion (approx. $886 million USD) in assets as part of a large‑scale market manipulation and insider trading investigation.
• Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) issued warnings to a crypto exchange and other platforms for soliciting over‑the‑counter derivatives transactions without registration, reinforcing Japan’s strict enforcement stance on unlicensed crypto activity.
• South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) fined a crypto exchange 36.8 billion won (approx. $24.5 million USD) and imposed a six‑month partial business suspension after identifying widespread anti‑money‑laundering and customer‑verification violations.
• South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) referred a robotics firm to prosecutors over alleged insider trading linked to an acquisition, with suspected illegal profits of up to 4 billion won (approx. $2.6 million USD).
• Singapore’s Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and police investigated a fund management company for suspected money laundering, arresting two directors and seizing more than S$160 million (approx. $125 million USD) in assets after identifying serious AML control failures.
• Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) removed over 120,000 misleading social‑media posts using an in‑house AI surveillance tool targeting “finfluencer” misconduct.
• SEBI fined and barred 18 entities a total of ₹2.8 crore (approx. $300,000 USD) and prohibited them from accessing securities markets for up to five years for orchestrating a pump‑and‑dump scheme, including coordinated trading and misleading Telegram stock tips.
• ASIC ordered a brokerage to pay a A$35 million penalty after a court found systemic failures that led to the misreporting of tens of millions of short sales over more than a decade, undermining market transparency and regulatory oversight.
• ASIC fined a cryptocurrency exchange’s Australian derivatives business A$ 10 million for serious onboarding and client‑classification failures that exposed retail investors to high‑risk crypto derivatives without required protections.

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